Computers Can’t Surprise

Creative writing used to be a human prerogative: do it well, do it badly, but either way endorse the consensus that to write about human experience was worth the candle and the coffee. Here was an essential human act, so much so that poetry formed a critical part of the computer pioneer Alan Turing’s original test: to determine whether an unseen respondent to a series of questions was human or a mechanical imposter. The Turing Test is often simplified to denote a single crossing point between two territories, human and machine. Pass the test, and artificial intelligence can stroll on over to our side of the line. Take a look around. Decide what to do with us. But, first, it has to pass.